


Horao ton Akouon kai ton Milon

by AthenaeGalea



Category: RWBY
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 23:28:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19896130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AthenaeGalea/pseuds/AthenaeGalea
Summary: Ruby’s excitement over weapons when she first meets the Mistral Champion.





	Horao ton Akouon kai ton Milon

“Yang! Yang! It’s _Pyrrha Nikos_!”

Pyrrha heard the excited shout from across the room. This was the only thing worse than the awkward glances she had been receiving so far. She settled her face into the Nikos mask and turned around, preparing to be polite to whoever it was.

She found herself looking down into a rather younger face than she had been expecting, and only just caught herself from asking where her parents were.

“Hi! I’m Ruby Rose!”

“Hello, Ruby, -”

“May I...” Ruby trailed off, so Pyrrha increased her smile slightly and started reaching for a pen.

Then she saw that Ruby was pointing at Milo and Akouo, slung on Pyrrha’s back. She noticed the taller, blonde girl hovering protectively and automatically looked to her for confirmation, before reminding herself that Ruby wouldn’t be here if she couldn’t use a weapon.

“Of course.” She handed them over, and now she and the other girl were _both_ hovering protectively, though of different things.

Ruby, meanwhile, couldn’t have been more excited. She examined Milo first, switching sword to spear to rifle. Then, after a pause, rifle to sword to rifle to sword to rifle to sword to spear, and it jammed.

“Ah, yes.” Polite laugh. “It does that sometimes. You just need to...”

But Ruby had already whacked the specific part of the mechanism, and Pyrrha had run out of script.

Ruby started explaining, oblivious to Pyrrha at a loss for words.

“It’s this locking pin here. Each time you change between rifle and xiphos it’s knocked by this part, and then it blocks the casing in the last phase of the change to spear. Give me ten minutes and some glue and I can fix it, as long as...”

Pyrrha looked to the tall blonde girl as Ruby studied that region more carefully.

“Don’t worry, she often takes people like that. I’m Yang Xiao Long, Ruby’s sister. If she says she can fix it, she can.”

Pyrrha recovered her manners. “Good to meet you.” Then, to Ruby, “Well, that would be very kind of you, Ruby.”

Silence descended as Ruby continued to check that her proposed fix wouldn’t break anything else. Then, satisfied, she looked at Akouo as Pyrrha continued to try to think of something to say.

“He’s heavier than I expected.” Fortunately Ruby seemed unfazed by her silence.

“That’s for when it’s thrown. If it were lighter...” Ruby was already nodding so Pyrrha trailed off. She continued to look at it appraisingly for a minute or two, turning it gently to view from different angles.

“Thank you.” Ruby spoke softly, with reverence in her voice, as she handed Pyrrha’s weapons back to her. That quiet moment, however, was hardly going to last long. “So are you looking forward to initiation?”

Pyrrha relaxed, though with a little regret, into an attitude she was far more used to: confident but not arrogant before a big event.

* * *

A couple of days after initiation, the two’s schedules had finally allowed them to meet to fix the problem. Ruby took Milo with the same glow in her eyes as before, handling it as one would a sacred relic. 

“We’ll have him fixed in no time,” she said, placing it carefully on the table and picking up her screwdriver.

Pyrrha looked at the workspace as Ruby began the disassembly, brows scrunched in concentration and eyes intent on her task. She had clearly colonised this space, with her various tools, Pyrrha noticed, looking rather more expensive (and better kept) than Beacon’s standard.

“How have your first few days been?”

“Psh, fine, fine. I don’t know how to talk to Blake and Weiss thinks I’m a bad leader and those two hate each other but it’s fine.”

Oh. “Well I think you’ll be an excellent leader.”

“You... you don’t think Weiss is right?” Ruby looked away from her work, gazing at Pyrrha with unabashed pleading.

Pyrrha took a moment to consider how to respond. “I think that she may have been hasty in her judgment, but I’m sure she will come around.”

“But she’s older than me and a better fighter than me and cleverer than me and richer than me…”

_And does not have sufficient people skills to even_ hide _her disdain._ “I’m sure Professor Ozpin knew what he was doing.”

Ruby shut down that conversation. “So you were really cool at initiation.”

“That’s very kind of you, Ruby. You also handled yourself admirably.”

Ruby’s obvious delight at that comment saddened Pyrrha for a moment. _Then again, I think she’s like that with everyone. It’s a little hard to adjust to._ But Ruby’s joy was infectious.

“And did you see Weiss? Those glyphs of hers are so cool!”

“Her semblance is rather powerful. Though I’m sure yours can be very useful as well! ... Sorry, I don’t mean to say it wasn’t, I...”

Ruby, laughing, clearly understood what Pyrrha meant. Milo was now lying in several pieces scattered across the table, and Pyrrha was slightly nervous that Ruby was taking no notes of which came from where. Still, she seemed to know what she was doing.

They remained in silence while Ruby completed the most fiddly bit of the task, actually gluing the locking pin into place without impeding the motion of any of the numerous moving parts nearby.

As the glue dried, Ruby bombarded Pyrrha with questions.

“So how long have you had them? Did you make them yourself?”

“About three years. No, they were presents from my parents after I won my first tournament. I don’t know any more than how to perform basic maintenance.”

“What did you use before them?”

Pyrrha entered upon a full history of her weapon usage. By the time she had finished, Ruby thought the glue was dry enough and spun on her stool to reassemble Milo.

“I truly cannot thank you enough. Is there any way I can help you in return?”

Ruby mumbled bashfully. That would seem to be a no.

“Well, would you like to at least test it out under combat conditions?”

“Are... are you offering to spar with me?” _I meant to ask rather than offer, but that’s done now._

“Do you want to?”

Sorting out the logistics took a moment or two, as their schedules were still very busy.

“And done!” Ruby held Milo up and cycled between its forms with a satisfied look. She nodded, hopped off her stool and handed Milo to Pyrrha hilt-first, with the same reverential care as before.

Pyrrha found later that she was rather looking forward to their spar.

**Author's Note:**

> This is why I don’t normally do small talk. It took far, far longer than it should have and I’m nowhere near happy with it. Ah, well.
> 
> All comments appreciated. Thank you for reading.


End file.
